On anxieties and ignorance around the #BBI process:
1. Raila Odinga would have been nothing but stupid not to expect some form of betrayal or taking advantage for self benefit by his partners in the BBI. He & his team weren’t & aren’t that stupid.
2. In politics betrayal never comes as a surprise and you do not prepare to avoid betrayal; you prepare to make it very costly and painful when it comes. I believe that form of preparedness is being ramped up and spread out.
3. The arguments on supporting or rejecting BBI are not so clever when made without any knowledge on what the final recommendations are. The setting may also be a trap to support the “politics of BBI” without any substance and help achieve set goals for “STEAK holders” or to reject the substance of BBI without any knowldge and assessment of its substance, and help create extraordinary circumstances for “STEAK holders” to fortify their stranglehold on the steak.
4. The BBI recommendations aren’t just about the national executive; the most radical recommendations in the Task Force report are about Kenya’s economic model and access to and control over means of economic production and exchange; our public finance; devolution of governance; our history and heritage; our education; our healthcare and our national identity. The obession with 5 political positions is a deliberate ploy to keep public attention and discussion away from where it ought to be.
5. The competing goal (to the steakholder’s goal) was never abandoned; strategy and tact were changed. The deal is to see the opportunities in the BBI process to continue pursuing the goal of democratising access to opportunities for producing, improving and sharing the steak.
6. Finally, the loudest supporters and opposers seem to be in the groups that hardly know anything about the substance and strategy of BBI. I believe the failure in public communication on the BBI was/is deliberate in order to keep things this way, but this will soon change.
By JS Westend
